In the fight against government union reform in Ohio, the Ohio Education Association (OEA) is the largest donor by a landslide. Ohio’s NEA affiliate charged every member $54 to help kill Senate Bill 5, and they’ve dumped $5.8 million into a $30.5 million campaign whose message is equal parts simple and dishonest:

Vote NO on Issue 2 on November 8th to help repeal Senate Bill 5, the unfair attack on employee rights and worker safety in Ohio.

The unions are too busy beating this drum to offer any evidence reform is an attack on workers that makes them less safe; the only reason to vote against Issue 2 is because the unions demand it. Since OEA has given more to the anti-reform effort than anyone, let’s see if OEA deserves Ohio’s trust!

Government unions have a straightforward business model: using money from members’ paychecks, lobby for endless tax increases and convince workers that only the union cares. From a taxpayer’s perspective this is bad enough – but OEA takes it one step further. The union pays itself big bucks to demonize Ohio’s elected officials and job creators:

These are just the OEA staff & officers paid more than $150,000. In 2010, more than 100 OEA employees were paid six figures! Strange that folks who make a living defending poor, unappreciated educators do so by shaking them down for triple the average Ohio teacher’s salary.

What do you think – can voters be forgiven for concluding the teachers’ union is more concerned with the union than with the teachers? Vote Yes on Issue 2!

Follow me on Twitter: @jasonahart

Cross-posted from that hero.

Union bosses in Ohio and Washington, D.C. are – oddly enough! – opposed to the sensible government union reforms in Senate Bill 5. Exactly how opposed? Combine yesterday’s cash and in-kind numbers from the Ohio Secretary of State with the figures from July, and you’ll see that unions have sunk more than $28 million into the campaign against Issue 2.

Out of $30.5 million dollars given to We Are Ohio since the union front group was created this spring, the overwhelming majority is directly from union bosses standing to lose a little power to Ohio taxpayers when Issue 2 passes. It’s been expensive convincing Ohioans that government union reform will destroy the middle class and return Ohio to the days of Jim Crow laws. Who has contributed the most to “We Are Ohio’s” dishonest smear campaign?

• Ohio Education Association (state NEA affiliate): $5.87 million
• AFSCME (D.C.) $3 million
• National Labor Table (D.C.): $3 million
  
• National Education Association  (D.C.): $2 million
• AFSCME Local 11: $1.94 million
• Communications Workers of America (D.C.): $1.5 million
  
• AFL-CIO (D.C.): $1.5 million
• AFSCME Local 4: $1.46 million
• Ohio Federation of Teachers (state AFT affiliate): $1.26 million
• SEIU 1199 (New York): $1 million
• SEIU 1199 (Ohio): $1 million

It’s also worth noting that more than $100,000 of the non-individual Ohio contributions are from the Ohio Democratic Party, and nearly every individual donor who lists a profession is a union rep. This could prove donors’ selfless dedication to the happiness of Ohio government employees (taxpayers and cruel “mathematics” aside)… but that isn’t what my past few months of Ohio Education Association research would suggest!

Get the facts about Ohio Issue 2, spread the truth before November 8th, and watch this space for more…

Follow me on Twitter: @jasonahart

Cross-posted from that hero.

We Are Ohio insists Issue 2 – in addition to being unnecessary – is “unsafe, unfair, and hurts us all.” I’ve thoroughly covered the hypocrisy of a D.C. union front pretending to have Ohioans’ interests at heart… is there anything trustworthy about the group’s talking points?

Unlike their other arguments, We Are Ohio’s complaint that Senate Bill 5 is unnecessary cites academic research. Amid the other fabrications on We Are Ohio’s “The TRUTH about Issue 2? page, you’ll find this:

MYTH: Public employees are overpaid, and their salaries need to be brought in line with the private sector.
TRUTH: A recent Rutgers University study found Ohio public employees earn 6 percent less on a yearly basis than their peers in the private sector. They earn 3.5% less on an hourly basis.

Contrary to the Rutgers study, two researchers at the American Enterprise Institute reported that Ohio government workers receive an average premium of 43% more than private industry employees when factors including job security are considered. But this is much more than a case of dueling think-tanks.

As reported at Third Base Politics and GOHP Blog, info about Rutgers professor and study author Jeffrey Keefe released yesterday at Big Journalism brings We Are Ohio’s only “factual” support into question.

Yet during the phone call, Keefe had emphasized how it is “important to do business with policy institutes rather than academics,” laughingly noting that “[a]cademics believe in publish or perish … no matter what the outcome is.” He reassured us that “Policy institutes have an policy agenda … The thing about EPI is when they publish something, it’s highly reliable and credible, but if it’s contrary to what you want, and what they want, they just, they pay for it, and they kill it.”

Out of all the researchers at all the universities in the country, why did We Are Ohio go to Jeffrey Keefe? Because he, like the Economic Policy Institute, has an agenda, and he’s not afraid to “kill” research that won’t support it. If you didn’t know EPI is a far-left advocacy group, you can thank Ohio media outlets for that. From a glowing piece about EPI in a 2007 issue of lefty rag The Nation:

For many years, the Economic Policy Institute has filled a lonely role in Washington politics–the premier left-liberal think tank standing up to the dominant conservative orthodoxy.

With the source of the unions’ only tangible evidence exposed as an unprincipled partisan whose publisher is a recognized left-wing organization, what have the union bosses behind We Are Ohio got going for them? Refer to the campaign’s continuous stream of lies and hyperbole, and there’s your answer. Vote Yes on Issue 2!

Follow me on Twitter: @jasonahart

Cross-posted from that hero.

Opponents of the reforms in Issue 2 blame busted local budgets on the way Governor Kasich handled the $8 billion deficit Ted Strickland left behind. In effect, government union bosses who thrive on a broken status quo insist the problem is too little spending. Like all leftists who decry spending cuts, union bosses want to raise our taxes.

For proof, consider Ohio school districts’ five-year forecasts from October 2010. Based on papered-over Strickland state figures – before Governor Kasich was even elected – districts projected major shortfalls by 2015. If we vote down Issue 2, how will local leaders cover these deficits? Layoffs, higher taxes, program cuts… choose any combination of the three.

Without Senate Bill 5, every resident of these Ohio school districts would have to pay between $1200 and $1500 in 2015 to cover the deficits forecast last fall:

In 2010, more than 450 Ohio school districts forecast deficits amounting to more than $100 per resident by 2015. These 21 districts aren’t even the worst examples!

Unfortunately for Ohio union bosses, heated rhetoric won’t melt mathematical reality. With your Yes vote on Issue 2, you can make it easier for school districts throughout state to address deficits without raising taxes, reducing services, or firing teachers.

Get the facts behind the anti-reform smear campaign, check out county-by-county school district forecasts, and then vote Yes on Issue 2!

Follow me on Twitter: @jasonahart

Cross-posted from that hero.

Do you support government union reform? If so, you’re a racist.

Not to worry; you aren’t alone. We can get through this with some good ol’ fashioned self-loathing and obedience to We Are Ohio! If you’ve recently learned from Ohio’s public union bosses that you’re a minority-hating bigot because you expect public employees to answer to the public, Issue 2 Racists Anonymous is for you:

Here are the Dispatch quotes for the first and second We Are Ohio TV spots, as well as the citation from We Are Ohio’s helpful “Jim Crow” radio ad.

For union boss pay, refer to the 2010 OEA, OAPSE (AFSCME Local 4) and AFSCME Council 8 reports to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Follow me on Twitter: @jasonahart

Cross-posted from that hero and Third Base Politics.